Goal A - Students will be able to compose for particular audiences and purposes.
As a class, we translated this goal to our own version - To transform information into ways that are appropriate to who is viewing it and why. This semester, Dr. Sherry taught us about the PAGE principles. This is an acronym for Purpose, Audience, Genre, and Engagement. Using these principles helped me very much to be able to think through what I'm writing, why I'm writing it, and then how I should write it. Before this class, I never really thought about the audience and the purpose, since I always just had to fulfill a certain assignment. But for the different projects we did, I had to really analyze the project, to be able to write it in a way that would be most effective to convey my information to the audience.
For this example, I will first show a step from my EAR project. EAR stands for Engaging other Audiences with your Research. We were to use data from our CLUE project, which is the genre of a scientific journal, and there are more details about it below Goal B. In the EAR project, we transformed information from CLUE to a new genre in order to best suit the audience we were presenting to. For example, a student just entering high school would much rather read a simple flyer or brochure and get the basic most necessary information than read through a lengthy scientific research paper with a ton of confusing data. So it was my job to decide how to best present the necessary information in different ways appropriate to who is viewing it and why.
In this EAR step, I made a newsletter, that would be sent to parents and faculty members. In this it was a little more formal than it would be to a student, but it still looks nice and simple, to catch an eye and keep it interesting.
In this newsletter, I am basically sending out a annual update/information packet about dual enrollment to families and faculty members. The goal of this is to show the readers how students are excelling, and use that as motivation for new students to be doing the same. Also this newsletter helps to encourage all those who are taking dual enrollment classes to keep working hard and that their effort will not be in vain.
For another example of this goal, I show my next EAR project, which was a satire. Like a political cartoon, this takes real information and makes light of it, in order to get a point across. It often exaggerates the situation in order to clearly portray the artists views and beliefs. I like this genre because you can take your information and use it in a very persuasive way. In this satire, I used more information from CLUE, and created an old man who was losing money, saying "finally graduated." This was to show that if you go with traditional education, you will be in debt, and will sometimes be pretty old when you finally finish college. Again, this is exaggerated, but it is done so to add effect.
My goal in this is to show the "danger" in not taking advantage of dual enrollment. I wanted to get the point across to the audience of high school students or their parents that this is potentially how they will end up if they don't take action now to help them in the future.
Goal B - Students will be able to compose using language and conventions appropriate to genre.
To demonstrate this, I present my CLUE project. This was a project to examine what it means to be a part of a certain group of people or community. It was meant to be a research paper. I only wrote a few of these types of paper before this, and it is a genre that has very specific form. I was able to read other scientific articles, and see what they did, so I could know what was expected and what would work for me to do. I used the proper headings, which are Problem, Background, Method, Findings, and Conclusion.
These headings are found in this genre, so it makes sense that I would use them for this research project. By using the proper language, I am able to communicate everything I want to who I want. However, before you can speak to a group, you need to learn the language of the group. Although this isn't really a group, it is a style, and I am glad to have learned how to appropriately match any given style in the way I write and present information.
Goal C - Students will be able to read, select, and use evidence critically to formulate and support arguments.
As a class, we translated this to: to find, evaluate, and use information that will help support a point. We had to demonstrate this in our CLUE projects, when we used sources. The 3 INs are INtroduce, INsert, and INterpret. This is used when you talk about others' research. For my project about Dual Enrollment in high school, I had to choose what information others provided that would be most useful in supporting my argument. With the 3 INs, I carefully chose which data to use for each argument, and I used the 3 INs two times throughout the project. See an example of the first use in the Background section of the CLUE paper.
When I used the 3 INs I used one section of research out of many many possibilities. I read through a lot of scientific journals on the topic of dual enrollment, and its effect on almost every aspect of education and finances. I was passionate about being able to show others that they could be able to save an incredible amount of money and time, and that there are so many more benefits to working hard in high school. To introduce the quote, I simply made an interesting statement about it and briefly described what it was. After that I inserted the quote, and then I wrote why it was important to the topic and how it connected to the readers. I basically talked about why it was relevant and what I took away from it.
Goal D - Students will be able to interpret and compose in a variety of media and print/non-print genres.
Dr. Sherry taught us about the CRAP principles. They are Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity. It was very interesting to learn about these, because I never realized that almost every single form of visual media (if it's good) follows these rules. I am grateful we got to learn about these because it will help me make things look better to the eye in the future.
The first kind of different media I composed was a brochure. I looked at many examples of other brochures, to see what I liked and what I didn't like, and then combined that with my knowledge of the CRAP principles to create my transformation of CLUE research to one of the EAR steps. So without further ado, I present my example of a new media, a brochure.
In this brochure I used the CRAP principles and created a new medium that is not usually created in an English class. The brochure was also tricky to make because there was not as much room as a long scientific article, so I had to strategically choose what would be the most valuable information to include. I chose to show the benefits of taking the dual enrollment classes, because that is what I thought would catch attention. I also gave an example of a real student who took these classes that I interviewed, to show the interesting success story and build credibility to what I was saying. I also put some contact information, because if this was a real brochure there should be a way to contact me for those who are interested in taking advantage of this amazing opportunity.
Among other genres, I also composed a cover letter. This was great practice as I will certainly need to do this in my future, and I have never learned how to before. In this cover letter, I again used models to find out how to best complete my own.
In this letter I used all the principles I have already talked about. It was an imagined business called Smarter Schooling that I wanted to be a part of. I included my past accomplishments and a little bit of my story. This meets the goal of composing in a variety of genres, as it is a completely new and different genre from the rest of the projects, and taught me to be able to present myself in the best way possible.
Goal E - Students will be able to discuss and apply appropriate writing processes both individually and in collaborative contexts.
The next piece I will talk about is my TELL project. The TELL project means Tracing Education in your Life as a Learner. It is meant answer our big question of the year: what does it mean to be educated? Each person's answer to this is different, and we were able to describe our background in order to explain the reason behind our view of education. There are three distinct sections, past, present, and future. I liked writing my project, because I have never thought into my own life and what my experiences of education really mean to me. I talked about how in the past, education was about listening to others that are older than me and had more experience. In the present education is about being an outsider and set apart from the world. While in my imagined future, education is being able to do what I am called to, and live out my passions to the fullest.
Here is an exert from the section of me talking about my past:
They knew so much, and they had so much to do. Being a kid, I should not have worried about this, and I should have played with the other kids, because I will have the rest of my life to be old, but you can never be young. You can never be young. All this to say, from the very earliest stages of my life I have been different, I haven't fit in with the normal, and I've never wanted to. I was an outsider.
After Dr. Sherry looked at my draft, he sent me an email with the checklist as he has for all of our assignments. This is very helpful to me, because it shows me the good parts of my work and makes me realize where the parts are need more attention, since he tells you which parts aren't as good. He also gives you a preliminary grade, which helps me know how I am doing on the project so far.
After receiving the email and thinking about how I could use his advice in my project, I went back and started to add more details from the tips he had previously provided to us. Here is the same section as before, but now it is revised and added much more detail to elaborate each scene, as Dr. Sherry suggested:
They knew so much, and they had so much to do. In my mind, they were educated. It wasn’t all knowledge that you could only gain in a classroom, but just a general knowledge of life. To me, among other things, being educated is to pick up on your surroundings and use your information to make the most of your situation. I can’t remember anything specific that I heard them talk about, but I definitely remember hearing them talk. I even remember most of the mothers, and what they looked like. But, the strange thing is that I don’t remember any of the children that were my age. Being a kid, I should not have worried about the adults, and I should have played with the other kids, because I would have the rest of my life to be old. However, in my mind, you can never be young. You can never be young. I say this because really, the only time you are young to yourself, is when you look back on earlier stages of your life. And you obviously can’t go back to that time. Even as I write this, the world considers me young, but being young cannot be an excuse to not work your hardest to succeed. All this to say, from the very earliest stages of my life I have been different, I haven't fit in with the normal, and I've never wanted to. I was an outsider.
As you can see, there is probably twice the content in this version, even though it still saying the same things. I would not have known to do this if it wasn't for the collaboration of Dr. Sherry giving his input, and suggestions of what to do to enhance my work. Of course, all of his knowledge would be void if he didn't share it with me, in the same way it would be void if I chose not to take his advice. This is where the collaboration comes in. There is a give and take of information, but also action. He told me what he thought, and I listened to what he had to say and made it happen. If I wouldn't have changed my paper to his suggestions, I would not be taking advantage of the collaboration.
However, sometimes you also have to make revisions to your writing as an individual, without Dr. Sherry telling you what to do. I believe this is when our peer review sessions came in. I at first thought that this would also be considered as collaboration, and it does, but it also can be an individualized event. When I did peer review, I was able to take a step back from my work and look at it solely as a reader. When I did this, I saw a lot of flaws that I hadn't even realized before. It also helped when I read my work out loud to the group, because I could hear how it sounded, and if the story made sense. After peer reviews, I gained a lot of insight from myself, not even really from others. Peer review was just a good time for me to see how others responded to my work, if they responded in the way I wanted someone's response to be, then I knew it was good.
I have attached one of the peer review sheets that I used:
By using the checklist on the second page, I get to see what I need to have, and it makes me think about whether or not or met those requirements. This is when individual revision takes place. I then was able to take this sheet home and work by myself to make sure that I'm doing my best according to this sheet. The great thing about peer review is that it can be both individual and collaborative, since we help each other realize where we could use more work, and then work on our own to accomplish these goals.
As a class, we translated this goal to our own version - To transform information into ways that are appropriate to who is viewing it and why. This semester, Dr. Sherry taught us about the PAGE principles. This is an acronym for Purpose, Audience, Genre, and Engagement. Using these principles helped me very much to be able to think through what I'm writing, why I'm writing it, and then how I should write it. Before this class, I never really thought about the audience and the purpose, since I always just had to fulfill a certain assignment. But for the different projects we did, I had to really analyze the project, to be able to write it in a way that would be most effective to convey my information to the audience.
For this example, I will first show a step from my EAR project. EAR stands for Engaging other Audiences with your Research. We were to use data from our CLUE project, which is the genre of a scientific journal, and there are more details about it below Goal B. In the EAR project, we transformed information from CLUE to a new genre in order to best suit the audience we were presenting to. For example, a student just entering high school would much rather read a simple flyer or brochure and get the basic most necessary information than read through a lengthy scientific research paper with a ton of confusing data. So it was my job to decide how to best present the necessary information in different ways appropriate to who is viewing it and why.
In this EAR step, I made a newsletter, that would be sent to parents and faculty members. In this it was a little more formal than it would be to a student, but it still looks nice and simple, to catch an eye and keep it interesting.
My Newsletter:
In this newsletter, I am basically sending out a annual update/information packet about dual enrollment to families and faculty members. The goal of this is to show the readers how students are excelling, and use that as motivation for new students to be doing the same. Also this newsletter helps to encourage all those who are taking dual enrollment classes to keep working hard and that their effort will not be in vain.
For another example of this goal, I show my next EAR project, which was a satire. Like a political cartoon, this takes real information and makes light of it, in order to get a point across. It often exaggerates the situation in order to clearly portray the artists views and beliefs. I like this genre because you can take your information and use it in a very persuasive way. In this satire, I used more information from CLUE, and created an old man who was losing money, saying "finally graduated." This was to show that if you go with traditional education, you will be in debt, and will sometimes be pretty old when you finally finish college. Again, this is exaggerated, but it is done so to add effect.
My Satire:
My goal in this is to show the "danger" in not taking advantage of dual enrollment. I wanted to get the point across to the audience of high school students or their parents that this is potentially how they will end up if they don't take action now to help them in the future.
Goal B - Students will be able to compose using language and conventions appropriate to genre.
To demonstrate this, I present my CLUE project. This was a project to examine what it means to be a part of a certain group of people or community. It was meant to be a research paper. I only wrote a few of these types of paper before this, and it is a genre that has very specific form. I was able to read other scientific articles, and see what they did, so I could know what was expected and what would work for me to do. I used the proper headings, which are Problem, Background, Method, Findings, and Conclusion.
My CLUE Project:
These headings are found in this genre, so it makes sense that I would use them for this research project. By using the proper language, I am able to communicate everything I want to who I want. However, before you can speak to a group, you need to learn the language of the group. Although this isn't really a group, it is a style, and I am glad to have learned how to appropriately match any given style in the way I write and present information.
Goal C - Students will be able to read, select, and use evidence critically to formulate and support arguments.
As a class, we translated this to: to find, evaluate, and use information that will help support a point. We had to demonstrate this in our CLUE projects, when we used sources. The 3 INs are INtroduce, INsert, and INterpret. This is used when you talk about others' research. For my project about Dual Enrollment in high school, I had to choose what information others provided that would be most useful in supporting my argument. With the 3 INs, I carefully chose which data to use for each argument, and I used the 3 INs two times throughout the project. See an example of the first use in the Background section of the CLUE paper.
My CLUE Project:
When I used the 3 INs I used one section of research out of many many possibilities. I read through a lot of scientific journals on the topic of dual enrollment, and its effect on almost every aspect of education and finances. I was passionate about being able to show others that they could be able to save an incredible amount of money and time, and that there are so many more benefits to working hard in high school. To introduce the quote, I simply made an interesting statement about it and briefly described what it was. After that I inserted the quote, and then I wrote why it was important to the topic and how it connected to the readers. I basically talked about why it was relevant and what I took away from it.
Goal D - Students will be able to interpret and compose in a variety of media and print/non-print genres.
Dr. Sherry taught us about the CRAP principles. They are Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity. It was very interesting to learn about these, because I never realized that almost every single form of visual media (if it's good) follows these rules. I am grateful we got to learn about these because it will help me make things look better to the eye in the future.
The first kind of different media I composed was a brochure. I looked at many examples of other brochures, to see what I liked and what I didn't like, and then combined that with my knowledge of the CRAP principles to create my transformation of CLUE research to one of the EAR steps. So without further ado, I present my example of a new media, a brochure.
My Brochure:
In this brochure I used the CRAP principles and created a new medium that is not usually created in an English class. The brochure was also tricky to make because there was not as much room as a long scientific article, so I had to strategically choose what would be the most valuable information to include. I chose to show the benefits of taking the dual enrollment classes, because that is what I thought would catch attention. I also gave an example of a real student who took these classes that I interviewed, to show the interesting success story and build credibility to what I was saying. I also put some contact information, because if this was a real brochure there should be a way to contact me for those who are interested in taking advantage of this amazing opportunity.
Among other genres, I also composed a cover letter. This was great practice as I will certainly need to do this in my future, and I have never learned how to before. In this cover letter, I again used models to find out how to best complete my own.
My Letter:
In this letter I used all the principles I have already talked about. It was an imagined business called Smarter Schooling that I wanted to be a part of. I included my past accomplishments and a little bit of my story. This meets the goal of composing in a variety of genres, as it is a completely new and different genre from the rest of the projects, and taught me to be able to present myself in the best way possible.
Goal E - Students will be able to discuss and apply appropriate writing processes both individually and in collaborative contexts.
The next piece I will talk about is my TELL project. The TELL project means Tracing Education in your Life as a Learner. It is meant answer our big question of the year: what does it mean to be educated? Each person's answer to this is different, and we were able to describe our background in order to explain the reason behind our view of education. There are three distinct sections, past, present, and future. I liked writing my project, because I have never thought into my own life and what my experiences of education really mean to me. I talked about how in the past, education was about listening to others that are older than me and had more experience. In the present education is about being an outsider and set apart from the world. While in my imagined future, education is being able to do what I am called to, and live out my passions to the fullest.
Here is an exert from the section of me talking about my past:
They knew so much, and they had so much to do. Being a kid, I should not have worried about this, and I should have played with the other kids, because I will have the rest of my life to be old, but you can never be young. You can never be young. All this to say, from the very earliest stages of my life I have been different, I haven't fit in with the normal, and I've never wanted to. I was an outsider.
After Dr. Sherry looked at my draft, he sent me an email with the checklist as he has for all of our assignments. This is very helpful to me, because it shows me the good parts of my work and makes me realize where the parts are need more attention, since he tells you which parts aren't as good. He also gives you a preliminary grade, which helps me know how I am doing on the project so far.
After receiving the email and thinking about how I could use his advice in my project, I went back and started to add more details from the tips he had previously provided to us. Here is the same section as before, but now it is revised and added much more detail to elaborate each scene, as Dr. Sherry suggested:
They knew so much, and they had so much to do. In my mind, they were educated. It wasn’t all knowledge that you could only gain in a classroom, but just a general knowledge of life. To me, among other things, being educated is to pick up on your surroundings and use your information to make the most of your situation. I can’t remember anything specific that I heard them talk about, but I definitely remember hearing them talk. I even remember most of the mothers, and what they looked like. But, the strange thing is that I don’t remember any of the children that were my age.
Being a kid, I should not have worried about the adults, and I should have played with the other kids, because I would have the rest of my life to be old. However, in my mind, you can never be young. You can never be young. I say this because really, the only time you are young to yourself, is when you look back on earlier stages of your life. And you obviously can’t go back to that time. Even as I write this, the world considers me young, but being young cannot be an excuse to not work your hardest to succeed. All this to say, from the very earliest stages of my life I have been different, I haven't fit in with the normal, and I've never wanted to. I was an outsider.
As you can see, there is probably twice the content in this version, even though it still saying the same things. I would not have known to do this if it wasn't for the collaboration of Dr. Sherry giving his input, and suggestions of what to do to enhance my work. Of course, all of his knowledge would be void if he didn't share it with me, in the same way it would be void if I chose not to take his advice. This is where the collaboration comes in. There is a give and take of information, but also action. He told me what he thought, and I listened to what he had to say and made it happen. If I wouldn't have changed my paper to his suggestions, I would not be taking advantage of the collaboration.
However, sometimes you also have to make revisions to your writing as an individual, without Dr. Sherry telling you what to do. I believe this is when our peer review sessions came in. I at first thought that this would also be considered as collaboration, and it does, but it also can be an individualized event. When I did peer review, I was able to take a step back from my work and look at it solely as a reader. When I did this, I saw a lot of flaws that I hadn't even realized before. It also helped when I read my work out loud to the group, because I could hear how it sounded, and if the story made sense. After peer reviews, I gained a lot of insight from myself, not even really from others. Peer review was just a good time for me to see how others responded to my work, if they responded in the way I wanted someone's response to be, then I knew it was good.
I have attached one of the peer review sheets that I used:
By using the checklist on the second page, I get to see what I need to have, and it makes me think about whether or not or met those requirements. This is when individual revision takes place. I then was able to take this sheet home and work by myself to make sure that I'm doing my best according to this sheet. The great thing about peer review is that it can be both individual and collaborative, since we help each other realize where we could use more work, and then work on our own to accomplish these goals.